Police Trace 2015 Plane Crash in Tokyo to Overweight

November 20, 2018

Tokyo--Police believe that a fatal light plane crash in Tokyo in 2015 occurred as the aircraft lost speed chiefly due to overweight, according to informed sources.

A team of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department is in the final stages of investigations as it intends to send papers to prosecutors on Junji Koyama, 65, president of Nippon Aerotech Co., which managed the aircraft, and Taishi Kawamura, the captain of the plane, who died in the crash at the age of 36, on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in deaths and injuries, the sources said.

The crash in a residential area in the western Tokyo city of Chofu on July 26, 2015, also killed a male passenger of the aircraft and a female resident of a house into which the plane crashed. Five people were injured.

Koyama and Kawamura are suspected to have neglected to check the total weight of the aircraft before the takeoff and allowed the flight of the overweight plane in violation of regulations including the civil aeronautics act, according to the sources.

A report of the Japan Transport Safety Board released last year concluded that the total weight of the plane was over 50 kilograms above the limit.

The MPD investigation team also concluded that the plane was overloaded, after confirming the weight of passengers and fuel, the sources said. The team is believed to be checking whether there were any defects in the aircraft's engine.

Last year, the team sent papers on Koyama, Kawamura and Nippon Aerotech to prosecutors for allegedly offering chartered flight services without authorization in violation of the civil aeronautics act.

In May this year, Tokyo District Court's Tachikawa branch sentenced Koyama to one year in prison, suspended for three years, and ordered Nippon Aerotech to pay a fine of 1.5 million yen. Jiji Press